A free remedial tutorial on the subjects of Civics, Ethics and Logic
By Curmudgeon
Did Bob Geiger, head of Lift Ogden and vocal supporter of the Godfrey administration, cut too many classes in Civics 101? Sadly, that seems to be so, based on the remarkable letter he wrote to the Standard Examiner and which appears in Sunday's paper.
Mr. Geiger is unhappy because Ms. D. Littrell has raised questions about whether Ogden complied with the terms of a $900K development grant it got from the state to convert the American Can building into a High Tech business incubator and educational facility. Ms. Littrell thinks Ogden did not comply and should have to return the money to the state. "Why", Mr. Geiger asks, "would a local resident want to reject nearly $1 million in state funds for our city?"
OK, Mr. Geiger, get out your pencil, listen carefully and take notes this time. There are several points involving basic civics that you should have picked up in high school, and certainly in college, or even along the way as you became a citizen activist yourself.
(a) The grant to Ogden was state money, raised by taxes. If there is a question about whether the money was improperly obtained or used, then any resident of the state is fully entitled to ask those questions. If I discovered that, say, Provo got a million dollar state grant to improve traffic safety in the city and instead used the money to build a public skating rink and marriage gazebo in a downtown park, I'd be pounding out letters to the AG and my state representatives pretty quick. The fact that this particular grant benefited Ogden is not a sound reason to ignore how the grant was used if you suspect it was used improperly. "It may have been improper, but it benefited us so asking questions about it is unwarranted" is hardly a standard of public ethics I'd want to prevail statewide. Nor, Mr. Geiger, would you if you put you partisanship aside for a moment and thought about it.
(b) There is absolutely nothing wrong with a citizen, in this case Ms. Littrell, asking questions about whether the city used a state grant properly. Citizens are supposed to keep an eye on what their government does and to ask questions about government conduct. Yes, truly, Bob. That's what citizens are supposed to do. [Civics 101 yet again.]
So, Ms. Littrell raised a question about the city's use of the money. The agency that gave the city the money then quite properly took her question seriously and investigated the matter. [That's what government entities are supposed to do, Bob, when citizens have questions. Really it is. You could look it up.] The governor's office of economic development then passed what it turned up on to the Attorney General and asked for an opinion about the matter, which he rendered. Damned if I can find anything wrong in that process, Bob... except of course for your apparent belief that Ms. Littrell should not be asking questions about Godfrey administration actions because... well, apparently because she had the temerity to ask questions about policies you liked. But that's they way things are in a democracy, Bob. Americans have a long tradition, reaching back to the 1760s of being, occasionally, downright uppity with respect to their governors, and asking questions, sometimes embarrassing questions, and demanding answers to them. Sorry you'd apparently prefer us to be a nation of sheep, but that's not the way democracy has worked, as a rule, here in the USA. Get used to it.
(c) In his letter, Mr. Geiger identifies a Mr. Tom Owens as "a local obstructionist." Mr. Geiger explains that one of the things that makes Mr. Owens "an obstructionist" is that he "placed a bid on the Bootjack LLC property" which the city sold instead to Godfrey crony Mr. Chris Peterson. Of course, what Mr. Geiger left out of his letter is the fact that Mr. Owen's bid for the property was $30,000 more than Mr. Peterson offered for the property. Mr. Geiger also does not tell his readers that the city sold the land to the Mayor's crony for $30K less than Mr. Owens offered for it. If Mr. Geiger really thinks offering more for city land when it's put up for sale than a politician's crony offers for it constitutes obstructing Ogden's progress, then all I can say is, next time Ogden puts up public property for sale, I hope we get several, in fact dozens, of "obstructionists" offering more for the land than the Mayor's cronies are offering. We should be so lucky.
Finally, Mr. Geiger goes off on a "guilt by association" rant, claiming that Mr. Owens and Ms. Sharon Beech and Mr. Dan Schroeder have said nice things about Dorothy Littrell and [he claims] have "trivialized" Amer Sports decision to move to Ogden. He notes that all appear as supporters of Smart Growth Ogden, and that it's sad that [by implication] SGO is involved in "trivializing Amer Sports as a precursor to cheering the rejection of a $900,000 investment in Ogden."
I wouldn't presume to answer for Mr. Owens, Mr. Schroeder, Ms. Littrell or Ms. Beech, all of whom are fully capable of defending their views. Nor am I authorized to speak for SGO. But I would note that I've been a strong supporter of SGO from its inception, I continue to work with the group now, and to my knowledge, SGO has issued no statement "trivializing" Amer Sports coming to Ogden, nor has it taken a stand on the $900 grant Mr. Littrell asked questions about.
Which leaves Mr. Geiger arguing this: that SGO must approve of everything Ms. Littrell or Mr. Owens or Mr. Schroeder or Ms. Beech does or says on any public matter because they all support SGO on the issues it advocates. SGO defends its views on issues on which it has taken a stand. But to ask it to be responsible for statements it has not made on issues it has not addressed seems more than a little unreasonable. I'm sure Mr. Geiger would find it unreasonable if people insisted he defend statements he had not made on issues he had not addressed.
But just for fun, let's apply Mr. Geiger's logic [politely so called] to his own views. Mr. Geiger apparently thinks it is wrong for a citizen to offer more for city land up for sale than the Mayor's cronies offer for that land, that doing so is "obstructionist." Mr. Geiger is, I'm informed, a veteran of the Marine Corps. From which we can conclude, using his reasoning, that all Marine Corps veterans support selling public land to politicians' cronies for less than others would offer for that land, because Mr. Geiger is a Corps veteran and that's what he thinks.
For the sake of elevating public discussion in the city of Ogden, I strongly suggest Mr. Geiger find a little time to take a basic American government course at WSU. The political science department offers them fairly frequently. If Mr. Geiger wants to apply for a grant to pay his tuition for the course, I'll happily write in support of that. I'd consider it my civic duty.
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27 comments:
All tyranny needs to gain a foothold is for people of good conscience to remain silent.
I agree, Curmudgeon.
I wish that the geigers and there Japanese business would get out of my face here in Ogden. All they want to do is use our tax dollars to futher their business, becuse they could not do it on their own. otherwise they would not be trying to tell the mayor how to run this city, so boby and curty, please mind your own business and get out of ours.
one other thing mr. geigers since when or how does all this make you such experts on the whole matter.
I would suppose that if this Owens fellow would have written a letter to the Standard saying that without people like Mz. Litteral the criminal conduct of the Godfrey Administration would never be known to the public, the folks at the Standard would never print it.
So I think Mr. Owens and the Standard readers owe a great debt of gratitude to Mr. Geiger for getting that little nugget of truth
printed in the Standard!
Mr. Curmudgeon's treatise on the subject, directed as a civics lesson to Mr. Gieger, is a masterpiece. Too bad it is one of those proverbial pearls that has been cast before swine.
From my observation of Dorothy Littrell's stands against the Matt Godfrey regime in Ogden I would unequivocally state that she has consistently been against giveaway of taxpayers' funds through tax increment giveaways and has consistently insisted on compliance with existing Utah statutes.
In the current matter of the $900,000.00 grant her claim is that the Ogden City RDA failed to live up to the terms of the Grant Contract.
No where has she said anything derogatory about any business nor investor wanting to come to Ogden.
Everything in life is a matter of perspective and Mr. Geiger's perspective as stated in his letter to the SE labels him as a candidte for the looney bin.
Another thin unsaid in the Geiger rant about the Owens offer is that the offer gave the Ogden RDA full control of what eventually would be built on the property. So he not only offered the city $30,000 more than the mayor's friend, but he also gave the city control over said land.
I see this as a relatively important element considering all the talk the mayor has produced in the past about the eventual use of land being as important as the money the city gets for it.
To my knowledge the Mayor's friend Chriss Peterson who bought the land at the lower price has not disclosed what he intends to do with it.
To my way of thinking this only puts a real bad smell on an already stinking deal.
I have looked over the last 6 months at various pieces of property in the downtown part of the city, both undeveloped raw land properties and existing building structures to buy. My intent was to establish my business in the downtown area.
I have the personal financial capability to purchase everything that I’ve looked at, but I have concluded that the risk of being able to develop the property that I’ve looked at is too high, due to the very obvious preferential treatment that friends of the mayor have in any developments within the city as opposed to people that just want to be a part of its growth. I will invest my money elsewhere, where all I have to worry about is market risk rather than market risk and political risk.
Doing business in Ogden is like trying to do business in a country that is trying to nationalize all industries.
On the subject of CIVICS, ETHICS AND LOGIC --
On May 9th at noon, at my request, I had a 40-minute meeting with Governor Huntsman at the Governor's Mansion.
The purpose of the meeting was to present my facts for asking that the $900,000.00 Utah Grant made to Ogden to buy the American Can property be recalled as Ogden was in violation of the terms of the Contract and had been for many months after having been given 2 earlier extensions after failing to comply with completion deadlines.
One of the first things I requested of the Governor was that he not turn my request over to Attorney General Shurtleff because of my experience with that office's failure to act regarding violation of Utah statutes.
Governor Huntsman then called in his Executive Director of the Governor's Office of Economic Development, Jason P. Perry, for me talk to and turn over my documents and a disk containing over 200 copies of actual documents, deeds and property transfers on American Can.
I had less than 5 minutes to talk to Mr. Perry but I gave him my name, e-mail address and number to contact and he gave me his card.
I subsequently left phone messages for him several times and sent several e-mails but to this date Mr. Perry has not contacted me in any way.
The Attorney General's office never contacted me. The first I knew of their decision was a phone call from a news reporter Friday evening.
I had taken the former Principal of Da Vinci Academy to the meeting with me because he had pertinent information to fill in the Da Vinci part of the property purchase but he was not given time to speak.
The Governor was very surprised that Mr. Reese had been fired. He was also very surprised that David Harmer, who had signed the Grant Contract as a Utah State employee, was now working for Ogden directing what went on with the Grant.
Employees of the Utah Development Agency were known to have remarked that they weren't interested in recalling the grant because Ogden had received the money and that the money had been spent.
There is no question in my mind that Utah state politics were played with my complaint on the $900,000.00 Grant.
In his position of Executive Director, Jason P. Perry, had the authority to call the Grant. That is his job. He did not do his job.
I have a legal, properly executed Grant document recovered from the State Archives after no one in the Economic Development Agency could find a copy of the Grant Contract.
The terms could not be more specific. There is no mention of a "Good Faith" effort on the part of Ogden as being part of the Grant arrangement nor is the intent of the legislature mentioned.
This is a legal document properly executed that would stand up in any court in the country.
There is no question that the "old boys Republican political club" prevailed with the disposition of my claim in order to keep Governor Huntsman and his Executive Director from taking the heat.
The Governor admitted he needs a tutorial on Ogden politics. I am suggesting he needs a tutorial on Utah State politics if he really doesn't understand what happened to my claim and to my image of him as being a fair and concerned governor.
My question --Is he really naive or hasn't he learned the political game Shurtleff's office never fails to play with a citizen who is not an elected official?
Where's Ozboy, defending Bob Geiger as a "gentleman"? Bobby -- who learned a new word, "obstructionist" -- broke the rule by calling out two people by name who apparently don't think it's a good idea to string up a circus ride up 23rd and across Harrison that goes exactly nowhere. You called down the thunder, Geiger, now you got it. I'm going to start outing all your silly friends who do business in Ogden and support your lunacy -- let's call them "enablers" -- beginning with the proprietor of Mitchell Hardwood Flooring, who thinks MOGC is a daycare for his kid, but is apparently ripe to be sold to Wayne Peterson for less than pennies on the dollar. Hypocrite? Like you?
I don't like what I am reading.
What happens to the rule of law if elected officials play fast and loose with the truth to promote their own political agenda -
I sense that is where we are with Ogden City government but does that look like where we are heading with state government?
Or is it just the Attorney General's office?
Another thing the disingenuous little twerp Geiger didn't mention in his smarmy letter to the editor is that his momma is on Godfrey's payroll to the tune of $66,000 a year plus full benefits for a job overseeing the construction of the mall. This is a position for which she has absolutely no experience or qualifications or education that would make her fit for it. She does nothing for the money because the professionals at Boyer Company are actually doing the job she is being paid for.
In the old days it was called "feather bedding". That is where crooked politicians put their friends and families on the public payroll in phantom jobs. It is just one more way for them to steal from the tax payers. Godfrey also has his friend Stuart Reid in a feather bedding job at BDO for a hundred thousand a year or so.
Meanwhile the Governor, AG and others look the other way so as not to embarrass their cronies.
The Attorney General's office is supposed to represent the rule of law.
But then Weber County Attorney deCaria is supposed to represent the same thing and he certainly isn't interested in doing his job either.
On the role of the AG in giving advisory opinions:
As I understand it, an opinion of the AG's office, such as was just rendered in re: the Ogden American Can grant, is just that... advisory, not definitive. [Note recent AG's opinion on school vouchers and the State Board of Education rejecting it.]
Ultimately, then, responsibility for acting [or not acting] on this matter, seems to me, lies with the Governor's economic development office, and so [by extension] with the Governor himself. The decision making power is theirs, not the AGs [however much the AG would like to pretend otherwise].
Curmudgeon
I agree that it is the Governor's office where the buck stops on this one. However, I would like to re-state what I said on a prior post on the subject:
"Aint no way, no how, that the Huntsman administration is going to embarrass the Godfrey administration over a lousy little thing like $900 thousand tax payer bucks that may have been misappropriated.
The Huntsman mouth piece on this issue Clark Caras had already set the stage two weeks ago with his comments to Schwepke: "the fact that the Governor's Office of Economic Development is looking into the matter "doesn't mean GOED suspects the grant funds have been handled improperly." "We haven't seen anything wrong".
For those of you who don't see a problem with the $900 thousand coming to Ogden in violation of the terms under which it did come, I say it is all about one simple little word that is unknown in the Godfreyite movement and apparently the Governors office - INTEGRITY! In spite of what the little lord claims, there aint none of it any where near him.
And Jason,
I still say Bob Geiger's greatest sin is his boundless energy for and dogged pursuit of what he believes in.
His mind is apparently clouded with visions of Gondolas in the sky. Symptoms of a disease that has apparently infected a number of normally rational minds hereabouts. I believe the University research department is feverishly working on a vaccine for this insidious malady. Hopefully they will come up with a wonder drug that not only prevents the spread of this devastating brain wasting condition, but also cures the poor diluted souls that have already been infected.
Does any one know where the $3 million or so paid for the Can building has gone? Who got it? Who should get it? Is it going to pay back the tax payers that put the initial money up to begin with?
What about the other $2 million or more that has already gone into this building? Just where is all this money? Driving by the place it is obvious that it hasn't been spent on the building.
Is the new buyer from Colorado related to Scott Brown or some how other wise connected to the Mayor or his inner circle as rumored about town?
This whole saga is very complex with lots of dark corners and unexplained angles. Why doesn't the Mayor just come out once and for all and explain it all in simple linear terms. Surely he must realize that all the confusion makes the citizens suspicious. If he does know this, why doesn't he just clear it up with an explanation? I'm sure that the Standard would print it. If he doesn't realize this, then is really capable of being the mayor?
Why all the secrets?
I thought AmerSport was moving into that building in July. It still looks like a bombed out shell.
Just a note regarding my new : "Geiger is a pussy and so are his friends" campaign: Please do not consider patronizing (and tell Little Matty Gondola Godfrey that 'patron' is not a verb, the goddamn jackass) or in any way supporting any of these businesses/establishments/professionals I mention, because they are idiots and have been duped by Wayne Peterson. For today, please remember not to contract with Mitchell Hardwood Flooring, because the owner is a douche affiliated with Lift Ogden. I would much rather be an "obstructionist" than a "douche," but that's the way things go here in my beloved OTown.
Curmudgeon - Thanks for the great post. This former Marine says Ooh-Rah! Mr. Geiger's ill-conceived use of labels is not much of a surprise, considering he's one of the mayor's favorite cronies. What a suck-up.
Albert - Is it true that Mr. Geiger's mother, not his wife, was given a free ride on the Ogden City payroll gondola? Could that free ride be related to the no-bid contract the Rec Center is being built with? That ride smells fishy and sounds like cronyism.
Ms. Littrel - You appear to have true integrity, unlike the mayor's self-promoted, so-called integrity. I wish you could audit the entire financial structure of the Juction gravey train.
Everyone - Sorry about that poor link to Reno's Redevelopment site, in my last post. My bad, I goofed up the HTMl code. Guess I'm still a hack.
On another note, I not only find it comical that THE SKI IS BEAUTIFUL BLUE Curt Gieger would ponder public office, I find it sickening; who is going to vote for Curt Geiger except for Bernie Allen and Gondola Boy Mike Dowse (jackass!)? And, I not only triviliaze Amer and their 20 jobs, I openly mock them, Gieger: Dowse is a moron. f he drove up 23rd and down Harrison, and thinks "the gondola," as you like to say, is a good idea, he is a flat jerkoff. I ouldn't give two shits if he packed up his bags and drug his fat ass outta town.
I'm with you Jason. The power of the boycott has been entirely overlooked in the modern corporate America where the recent generations have come to trust the corporate state and to never question who runs a given business and who do they support. I'll never buy Descente and i will do everything in my power to trash their product whenever possible. They are not particularly popular stateside anyway. Mostly a Euro-Skier or Japan-touro style. They recently made a johnny-come-lately move into snowboard/extreme ski style.
As for Salomon, I'll give Mike Dowse and his group a chance. At least Dowse isn't gambling the goodwill of his company driving spikes in to the community like the Geigers. He is wise to stay out of local politics. I have confidence that he is smart enough to see through the urban-gondola nonsense. I spoke with him a couple of months ago, and he had no idea the polarizing aspect of these plans. Notice we hear nothing from anyone connected to Salomon. Surely they have the common sense to study things before jumping wholesale into some hair-brained plan to give away public open space for home development. The idea of boycotting any business that supports this terribly anti-community proposal is fresh in my mind. Beware douchebags. We will expose everyone who supports this disastrous insult to Ogden. If you enjoy a successful business you may want to preserve that by thinking critically instead of falling for pie-in-the-sky visions. This mayor will be gone before long but if you do business in ogden you will be remembered for supporting this little bully to the community and his band of clothing-merchant enforcers.
If anyone still doubts that Lift Ogden is gurgling in its death throes, look no further than Sunday's sorry screed from Ogden's oracular sage and entrepreneurial theologian Bob Geiger. In making public his risible diatribe against those who expose the shady municipal machinations of the Godfrey administration, Geiger may as well have leapt off of Malan's Basin without a parachute.
Dorothy Littrell's sin was to rudely expose the wires in the mayor's magic act. City Hall's surefire counterattack is to kill the messenger, and who better to slip in the stiletto than Elder Godfrey's most loyal squirrel patrol consigliere, Bob Geiger?
You've just got to sit back and gape at Geiger's tenacity in singing from the mayor's hymnbook. Despite the dead end to the WSU land grab decreed by the state regents, and the disabling torpor that has apparently beset Chris Peterson, Geiger still has a dream that Gucci and Prada will soon be hallowing Ogden's gilded gondolesque gulch.
Meryl Streep was wrong. The Devil Wears Descente.
Captain Bobby, self appointed leader of the newly reserrected squirrel patrol, may have personal reason's for his attemp to dissuade further investigations into the CAN building. His father and Scott Brown were full participants in the Riverside Tec. Foundation. This misstated investigation,(no real, investigating has been done, other than Dorothy's) is nothing more than the state saying they won't pursue the return of the money. That was the basis of the AG's comment. He hasn't conducted any investigation at all.
So many questions remain unanswered. If this foundation had been clean, why was the Ogden City Foundation created? How,and exactly when were assets transfered? If the city recieved the grants,(fed and state) where's the paper trail of how the Mayor's foundation wound up with the assets,shouldn't the city be compensated? Someone has made quite alo of money off this, Who? What about Riverside's illegal use of Davinci's tax ID number?
A complete and accurrate airring of this during an election cycle is not what the Mayor, nor his cronies would like to see, it would doom them all, they've all been touched and none would stand a chance if every detail came to light.
Captain Bobby has more than the gondola riding on this one, he's not that hard to figure out.
In fairness to these fools, it's doubtful they make all these moves will ill-intent. In fact, they think they have Ogden's best interest in mind, and their own if there's direct financial benefit. They haven't the skill or intellect to move in the shadows. Unfortunately they are scrambling around like scared children, locked in "got to save Ogden" mode. People who act and strategize out of fear are dying. Just like the warmongering pseudo-cons who have us mired in the middle-east, the whole justification is predicated and sustained on fear of some ill-defined enemy. In Ogden's case, it's the urban decay devil, the LO faction keeps in their closet, ready to release upon any talk of alternatives.
Fear is a negative emotion. It has no place in the minds of the positive and constructive.
The issues here appear to be these:
1. Dorothy’s attempts to get the state to look into the 900 grand and find out what’s going on.
2. Bobby’s letter attacking her for it, and attacking others for rather unspecific reasons.
3. The whole deal with the can building.
But the real issue is this:
Nobody trusts Matt Godfrey.
In reality, all these things could be minor matters if people were not so confident the mayor is a liar and a crook.
Curt Geiger says Matt Godfrey is a man who understands how business is done. In reality, Matt Godfrey is precisely, a man who does not. Business, regardless of the way it’s portrayed in media and whatever anybody may think, runs on trust, and cannot function without it. Lose that, and you’re finished.
Let this be a lesson to all. See what Matt has done to himself by being so willing to distort and manipulate for his goals. Now, no one trusts him, whether he’s on the level or not. He is finished.
Get him out of the picture, and we could all start working together. Leave him in the picture, and acrimony and mistrust will continue to reign.
Think about it, Bobby.
Apparently the admin and Geigers are willing to bend any rules and apply good faith grant money to whatever they can to desperately save Ogden. Good effort boys, unfortunately you have only reinforced the long held perception of the oddball ways of Ogden. Continuing to float the gondola plan assures no one will forget the numbskulls Ogden has representing them. If they build it, we are embedded in history as fulfilling a prophecy, written in astonishing detail into a Simpson's episode.
Remember the Ogden monorail.
This discussion on the American Can Building and all of it's twists and turns brings to mind the age old ethical question of "Does the end justify the means".
This concept has been wrestled with by the great thinkers of mankind practically since the dawn of civilization. The simple answer of course is it depends on what the end is and what the means to achieve that end are.
In this case the end seems admirable, that being a fully restored and functioning historical complex that adds to the economic viability of Ogden.
The ethical question - is that end justified by the means that the Godfreyites are using to achieve it.
Those means include lots of subterfuge and secret dealings, multiple questionable transfers of title amongst insiders and friends of Godfrey, false use of IRS entities and historic tax credits, obtaining millions in tax payer funds under false premises, those millions in public dollars apparently unaccounted for, mystery out of state buyers, political intrique and shenanigans, and only the good Lord knows what else.
I believe that all legitimate ethicists would agree that in this case the end absolutely does not justify the means.
In fact most every thing that Godfrey does would fit in this same category. His desire to build Ogden to its former glory is, in a broad sense, an admirable end goal. His crooked, secretive and manipulitive means of doing so are deplorable and do not justify the end. The specific "end" he invisions incidently is highly questionable in the minds of a very large number of thinking citizens.
The man and his inner circle are corrupt and arrogant to their core. Any means that they concieve of will be equally criminal and would never justify any good end we all strive for.
Curm's masterful 'lesson in civics' needs to be submitted as a commentary to the SE.
I think the editors there should carefully read it.
I'm appalled that the Gov's hack, Perry, did not work with Dorothy after promising to do so. Instead, he shoved the affair off to Shurtliff. Is there any honesy in UT politics?
Bobby's rant would be only amusing if it wasn't so embarrassing to see his complete lack of integrity and moral values..not to mention moral outrage..in PRINT!
Is his daddy who helped instill the twisted morality in his mouthy kid, running for mayor?
Is Donna Burdett? The Godfrey Groupie, Mosher? None of them have a complete moral fiber between them.
Sounds like it's time for nasty bobby to be slapped again!
And Dorothy Littrell should have a parade in her honor!
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